The present invention relates to data storage systems, and more particularly, this invention relates to magnetic heads and storage systems having reduced crosstalk.
In magnetic storage systems, data is read from and written onto magnetic recording media utilizing magnetic transducers commonly. Data is written on the magnetic recording media by moving a magnetic recording transducer to a position over the media where the data is to be stored. The magnetic recording transducer then generates a magnetic field, which encodes the data into the magnetic media. Data is read from the media by similarly positioning the magnetic read transducer and then sensing the magnetic field of the magnetic media. Read and write operations may be independently synchronized with the movement of the media to ensure that the data can be read from and written to the desired location on the media.
An important and continuing goal in the data storage industry is that of increasing the density of data stored on a medium. For tape storage systems, that goal has led to increasing the track density on recording tape, and decreasing the thickness of the magnetic tape medium. However, the development of small footprint, higher performance tape drive systems has created various problems in the design of a tape head assembly for use in such systems.
In a tape drive system, magnetic tape is moved over the surface of the tape head at high speed, where multiple writers operate at the same time to write data to the tape. However, as the spacing between the writers becomes smaller and smaller, problems, such as crosstalk, bit flipping, etc., tend to emerge more frequently.
Crosstalk is a phenomenon that occurs when two adjacent writers perform writing operations at about the same time. Particularly, crosstalk is present where the written portion for a first writer is affected by the magnetic flux created by an adjacent second writer, thereby degrading or otherwise adversely affecting the written information from the first writer. For example, stray flux generated by a powered writer will take a path from the top pole to the bottom pole of the writer, in the surrounding space. If a second writer is present and close to the first writer, the stray flux of the powered writer will pass through the second writer, taking a path through the top and bottom poles of the second writing. As the flux passes through the second writer structure, a portion of it also passes through the gap of the second writer, and can alter the pattern written by the second writer, leading to degradation of the written data pattern.
The writers do not need to be active simultaneously; crosstalk may emerge even upon performing writing operations within a few nanoseconds of each other, depending on the write gap of the particular head being used.
It would be favorable to reduce or eliminate crosstalk between adjacent write transducers to improve writing operation efficiency and accuracy.